Lights in sci-fi are so interesting and tied into mood and world building. Blade runner has neon in rain for very very specific reasons and I love that for them
I've been lighting for more than 40 years and some things never change such as open-ended nets and using gaffer's for flags. But today's RGB LED technology with app controls just blows me away. No more burned fingers, notebooks full of gels, and boxes of full single, full double, half-single, and half-double scrims. Don't miss that at all.
I shoot a lot of Sci-Fi. One of two ways to get the reflection is to one: Shoot a revers angle through the top of the glass and then match the mirror image it in post. This is very dependent on your actress being able to make the same movements for every take. And two: The other method, and I'm kind of surprised you didn't do it this way, is to use rear screen projection. Method two would have been the best method. With this method (I call it the Mandalorian method), you would be able to capture everything in camera and avoid the post VFX process.
For Method 1, you might be able to do that with a second camera and shoot both takes at the same time, so then the actress's movements in the reflection will match no matter what. Method 2 is good too, but it does require a bigger space and budget to make it look good.
Is it funny that I literally only learn lighting techniques from this channel? AND ALSO why don't you just do an entire movie through this channel, break down scene by scene, through a random script, all the scenes, lighting everything and doing tutorials, cause meen, the final outcome of the lighting today was out of this world... literally.
Sci fi is super fun to light! You don't have as many restrictions has period correct films or just normal shows and can basically don't whatever you want to fit the scene!
My favorite aspect of sci-fi lighting is using practical lights. I love how sometimes, an image will be projected onto talent's faces to simulate a screen they're looking at. As in The Matrix, 2001, Alien, etc. The sky's the limit with sci-fi!
How about . . . "Way more than 4 Minutes Film School" This episode was very interesting. I never did a space ship shot, but you never know when you will need to know.
My favorite aspect of lighting sci-fi is using vibrant colours. If you're gonna light with a shade of green, it should be a vibrant shade of green. Furthermore, I really like the variation between blue and purple. It's beautiful. Blue light in front of the subject and purple light coming from behind the subject. I also like a lot the contrast between green and red. Yellow lighting... not a big fan. AND practical lights. Love that big Titan Tubes. Of course, I would get one of these if I was filming a sci-fi movie or TV series.
Another fantastic episode! I actually got to work on two different fan-made retro Star Trek projects (Star Trek Phase 2 as a Grip and Star Trek Continues as a 1st AC) and not only did each one recreate the Enterprise from the original TV shows based on blueprints and such but we got to light and play around with the various sets! That's where i first learned to paint with lighting...we would mount lights on the top of the walls of the sets, add colored gels to them and point them directly downward so that they created this nice colored V-shape on the walls. Looks great on camera and easily adds interest to the hallways and sets. Keep up the great work, these videos are always my favorite (sorry, can't think of a better name than 4MFS at the moment!)
Love the heavy use of practicals whilst lighting SciFi, very creative and versatile! Using and showing the lights as part of the storytelling and world building - wonderful!
I love the unique problem solving needed in lighting for Sci Fi that allows for creative stylistic visions, but which still needs to be grounded and practical to convincingly sell the environment and integrate properly with VFX. The fact you also need to go in with a more specific plan than if you were shooting say on location is also the more fun/painful aspect of it.
Hi. Compositor here. You don't need black to get a reflection -- we pull reflections from glass over greenscreen every day on Hollywood movies. Pretty much every driving shot w/ greenscreen has the window up and if the greenscreen isn't blown out -- any mid level compositor should be able to retain the reflection.
My favorite aspect of lighting for Sci-Fi is you can light from underneath a person's face to represent a glowing console. I also like how all buttons glow different colors, allowing for more creative choices when it comes to colored lighting.
What should our show title be called? “The amazing Vee from Outer Space” Whats your favorite aspect of lightning Sci Fi? The thing that result so interesting to me was that the perception of the film industry is that the color in the sky seems to be steel Blue… while I always thought that it depends on the color of the nearest star which it would be the one that should dictate the space colors. Even the stars should be balanced on daylight… But this episode gave me a completely different perspective on how the space should Look… Thanks Vee :)
Fave aspect of sci-fi is the complete creativity it affords, unlike any other genre. With a bit of collaboration with other departments you can create almost any combination of lighting from the stark crisp Star Trek feel to moody Alien/s and Blade Runner. I can’t afford big sets so I try to pull my green screen foregrounds into my CG backgrounds by matching the lighting, often with the use of colour
I really liked this episode! I love how lighting Sci-Fi is full of artificial practical lights with colors like blue, green, red... That's why I loved so much the photography in Blade Runner 2049!
Lights in sci-fi makes use un limit your limits , basically it makes you get out of the box , and that is my favourite , it makes you unleash that crazy person inside. And BTW i think this show should be named unlimited film school so that no one can limit you about any time or any topic you make in the future Love all of you guys especially Vee❤️❤️❤️
Another method is to have your actor do the scene on a green/blue screen facing the camera and then again with their back to the camera. That way you could match it in post. Sort of a variation on method one. I also would have used blue screen. It's better for visual effects and the you could have had blue lights in the shot without messing up the key.
I love the technique you told to use blue colour at post production and even I tried it out but in mobile editor we don't get enough flexibility so I want the MC light so while editing it will be easy to edit and I can save my time 🙂
what i like about lighting for sci-fi its that it got attached into the world building in general, no matter the quality or the colors (since could be motivated by the setting like spaceships practicals, alarms for colors or signify the otherness of the world) and it invite to get different styles and variations to get used around the story. And the name, dunno, already like it, but could be like "get the look/get it lit" :D
It's interesting how newer space movies have more than just cockpit shots with blue hue. There are families who live on board and they are escaping Earth. These scenes are lit like a normal indoor scene most of the time. Why would the cockpit be blue and other areas of the spaceship be daylight/white light? Would be challenging from a continuity pov
Rename the series "For The Many Film School" as in its for many different types of people watching, and you cover many different topics! Also you wont have to change the acronym, it can still be 4MFS!
amazing tutorial - However, what would be the alternative if you didn't want to have the tube light ( with cinefoil) in shot. I personally like it in the wide as it feels part of the scene but when it cuts to the close up and I can see the cinefoil it throws me away. I would love to hear some suggestions on how to light her face in a different way
Man I love these videos, they are so helpful! On the flips side they make me wish I had more film making friends, or maybe just any friends 😥. 😄 I'm thinking you could call it Light Leak.
It's more of a cliche of the genre, somewhat derivative of the concept of pale blue "moonlight" and the refection of the earth. Everything should lend to the story!
Windows would be the weakest point in a spaceship fuselage. So for the next set put big monitors there instead. It would be a better spaceship design and there would be no need for rotoscoping :-) But great tutorial anyway. Thanks.
My favourite aspect is that depending on the narrative and the fictional spot you’re trying to create, you can go pretty wild with how you build your lights. It’s all fictional so you if it serves the story you can experiment and use unusual combinations. Who would know?! It’s all fictional anyway! 🤣😬
This was awesome!!! Thank you very much!!! My next two projects are sci-fi short films and this BTS really gave me some great insight!!! 🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
Valentina VeeFX! Awesome job. How come you guys didn’t just build a multi-billion dollar ILM Volume? Would have easily solved your green screen problem! Haha jk. What I love about sci-lighting is the flexibility to just get strange and go crazy! “More than 4 Minute Film School” “4+ Minute Film School.”
Excellent video. I am actually working on different green screen lighting variations right now for a shoot next month, so this was great timing. As to a name...hm Since you use other lights beside Aputure lights it cannot have that name in the title. You also don't do every single show so does that rule out using your name? Nothing is popping up just yet for a name. Interested in seeing what everyone else suggests.
Keep it 4 minute film school. If you make it 10 minute film school people might not watch it because in their minds they don't have 10 minutes to learn a new skill. The Expanse on Amazon Prime is probably the current best sci-fi in story and lighting so I would try to copy what they do.
